


Like A Blow to the Head

by randombitsofstars



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Coffee, Fluff, Green Shutters, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Maybe Some Metaphors, Seriously as Close to Fluff as I'll Get, Sunrises, Unreliable Narrator, bricks, brownstones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 01:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10651767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randombitsofstars/pseuds/randombitsofstars
Summary: It was one of those nights where the fire crackled and the rain dripped down the panes of the windows, and Arthur had just killed three men.





	Like A Blow to the Head

It was one of those nights where the fire crackled and the rain dripped down the panes of the windows, and Arthur had just killed three men.

Alright, not _just_ just, he had had the time to wash the stains out of the edges of his rolled-up Cucinelli shirt, but it was close enough for his instincts to scan his periphery twice the usual amount.

But it was quiet. He sat ensconced in an overstuffed brown leather chair twice his age with a book in his hand whose title he had forgotten. The brownstone was warm, not muggy like summer but with a wilted edge whose tipping point was approaching too much. His jacket was carefully laid over the wooden railing near the kitchen and Arthur paused for a moment in his study of the door - did he remember to clean the knife with bleach?

But the rain was dripping on outside, and the image of bloody metal flashed across Arthur’s vision, diluting the way his eyes tracked the closed shut entry of the brownstone, the exposed brick wall casting shadows into the uneven hardwood of the living space. It was a small section of the city, intimate, quaint, a place where tourists liked to wander down side streets and pose next to historical monuments whose stone seemed gilded under the soft slipping light of a vacation’s evening. Arthur knew their shutters were flecked green, a muted emerald green that blended with the dark colors of the rest of the cobbled street, the red brick a contrast and an enigma that connected together into the fabric of the city.

It was not his choice of a safe house. Arthur liked precise, cold, modern, separate. He liked secure alarm systems and up-to-date security and firewalls that even the best codebreakers scratched their heads at. And yet, a voice tickled along his spine, along his slightly creased collar where a man had tried to garrot him - _who needs firewalls, darling, when we don’t even own internet?_

And Arthur tried to remember what he did with the bodies.

Long shadows stretched longer as he watched the streetlamps succumb to a lighted glow. One could almost imagine a horse and buggy echoing across the rain-splattered pavement, a few travelers beneath an awning of black canvas and a hunched driver. It was black, it was dark, suddenly, and Arthur lurched up from his spot, his sentry position near the door abandoned. He looked at the windows, cut in their separated panes by painted segments and moved into the aged kitchen with a stilted grace. The water felt warm under his blood-encrusted palms, gushing sporadically under the old plumbing, and Arthur methodically cleaned each nail, his vision defocusing and focusing like a camera whose job wasn't clearly cut.

There was a washcloth next to the metal spigot and Arthur picked it up, inspecting the gaudy red fabric. _It hides blood well_ , he thought, but it wasn’t something he would own, because white could be bleached, always bleached -

Arthur sat back down in their brown chair. The living room was tiny, cramped, three coats on the wall - one long and black, one faux leather and scratched, another wool and ostentatious - taking up more space than was really comfortable. And there was an old fireplace, unused, but usable, Arthur presumed, ashes scattered by his right foot near the black grate in want of a sweeping. Arthur thought about the effort needed to start a fire and wondered where wood could be found because he was in the city and trees really were hard to come by, even in the residential district such as this -

But he felt warmth on his temple and realized a fire wasn’t called for in times like these, where salt was heavy on his tongue and it was only a matter of time until _he_ arrived, anyways…

Arthur got himself a glass of water, and resumed his position in the leather chair.

For a moment, he contemplated leaving the living room. There was nothing in the downstairs besides the kitchenette and the chair and the empty fire place and his forgotten jacket and really even though it was a spiral staircase it wasn’t really a hard climb -

There was a half bath on the first level, or a full, it was difficult for Arthur to recall right now. He banged his way inside shoulder first, the door protesting against the age-old hinges like the moans of a dreamer and he waited in the dark, the black and white traditional tiles too bright against the fabric of his closed eyelids, but Arthur came in here for something, and it was near night and hot with liquid slip slipping down his temple…

There was a balcony off the loft, a space which gave more square footage to the place than the loft bedroom itself. He could see the bedroom in his head, the impractically slanted roof with exposed beams, a lopsided triangle of a den, as opposed to the balcony, a rickety wrought iron expanse that opened to a courtyard, a courtyard not far from the city’s heart, where skyscrapers could be seen reaching for the edge of the night.

The balcony was slippery because of the rain, but so was everything else, Arthur found, unsuccessfully trying to slide the loft bedroom door shut behind him, fingers scrabbling at the wet handle. The trickle of raindrops was quieter in the dark, yet no less powerful, and Arthur felt the water rinse his face off with something none other than relief.

It was the same relief he felt as the last man fell, his mouth suddenly slack and his grip suddenly powerless under the sights of Arthur’s rifle. Arthur felt satisfaction, metallic and bitter in his mouth, and he turned, his vision slower than his movements as something rolled off his forehead in a spiral of droplets, a dark splatter on his sleeve, and Arthur made a note to clean the soiled fabric later. Cuccinelli was one of his favorites, after all.

Arthur almost forgot he was outside until his whole shirt was soaked, because the brownstone had some biscuits stashed in a red-chipped jar next to the sink but it didn’t have an overhang for the balcony - which was quite alright with Arthur, really, because he liked stargazing together.

But his eyes seemed too heavy tonight, and it was not scotch on his tongue but something too gauche to be called an acquired taste, something too bitter to be called a novelty.

Arthur wanted to descend the spiral staircase, but the stairs seemed too irregularly shaped to make travel feasible at the moment.

He didn’t remember lying back on the white duvet of the bed but that’s what must have happened because his eyes caught on the whorls in the dark brown wood of the beams, the original framing of the house. He looked at the white plaster and wondered what historical figure had owned this block because they definitely had, he remembered trying to quickly slip the realtor some cash - _he hadn’t been alone, even back then Arthur had detested that wool coat_ \- “Yes, ma’am, we just got together, it’s such a lovely summer place to rent.” The woman had gone on about _significance_ and lying next to the ghosts of founding fathers writing history - which had been funny, Arthur remembered later remarking that it was more likely their ghosts drinking…

It was the sound of a loose knob that woke him, the jiggle of antiquated metal on metal and brass on brass and familiar muffled curses in the dark.

It was truly dark, now, and Arthur’s hair stuck to his sticky forehead as he sat up -  _too fast, too fast_ \- he screwed his eyes shut once more, hands fisting in the not-so-white of the duvet below him.

_Is this what it feels like, to die right after sleep?_

But then there was the creak of a door and a boot on a threshold and another curse as that damned heavy coat fell off the peg in that too-small living room and Arthur wondered if his jacket was still visible on the railing of the stairway because it was night, and the rain was soothing but it did nothing for the lighting in the brownstone -

“Arthur? Darling?” A louder muffled _thump_ and the sound of boots being kicked to the side floated to Arthur’s ears in the loft. The wooden door was slammed and locked once more and Arthur wondered idly if it would be the rain washing the green paint off first or the pressure of the door grinding against the bricks.

“Are you up there? Why is the slider open - don’t tell me you’re on the balcony in this weather?”

Arthur decided the low cushion of the bed was not as comfortable as the timbre of the ascending words coming from the unwieldy stairs and he stumbled, too fast, in the direction of the slanted ceiling and the overstuffed chair and the way the tea drawer seemed to remain stuffed with exotic caches no matter how hard Arthur petitioned for just coffee -

Strong hands wrapped around Arthur’s biceps as he was stopped in his forward motion, his feet rocking back to fall flat on the dark hardwood of the loft.

“Arthur,” came a gasp from in front of him and his eyes dragged up, up a tan buttoned shirt and rain-slicked forearms and a mouth who in other terms Arthur would really like to become acquainted with _right now_ and he couldn’t really remember why now wasn’t a good idea -

“Arthur, in any other situation I would love to snog but it seems we have another pressing issue, darling.” And then the forearm moved and a bright white spot of pain alighted as something touched the too-warm not summer feeling in Arthur’s head and he tried to rock back, onto the too-low loft bed where the whorls of the exposed beams looked like dreams Arthur couldn’t quite remember -

He was eased back down onto the brown leather of the overstuffed chair without the faintest idea of how he had ended up there. A lamp glowed to his left, better illuminating the unused fireplace next to his dirty black dress shoes in which someone was picking at the laces, untying them -

“Shh, shh, we’ll make the fire another time, Arthur, but that’s for the winter when we want to sleep, right? And you don’t want to sleep now, in fact, I’d much rather you talk to me as I get the thread for your little gash, love.”

Arthur hummed an Irish tune he had picked up last Christmas and tried to recall the feeling of large hands on his waist as they drunkenly swayed to a traditional jig.

Arthur missed Ireland.

Cool water coated his face like the fog rolling over the hills, and just like the dew left after for the sun-starved leaves he felt droplets mingle in the landscape of his eyelashes.

“Keep your eyes open, Arthur, look at me.”

Everything was honey and warm like stained glass and Guinness. Arthur had never seen a better pair of eyes.

He stared at emerald flecks and wondered if that was where the color of the shutters came from.

“You’re doing brilliant, Arthur, you just have to stay up for a smidge longer. What if we sat on the balcony, love? The sun'll be rising soon, and we’re officially off the clock.”

Arthur felt his head loll pleasantly back and forth and thought maybe that he missed when everything was almost too warm.

He had missed it but somewhere they scaled the dreaded spiral steps and maybe the loft’s door had been open all along because Arthur was on the balcony and the wrought iron had little dew drops left over from the rain and his shirt was a different color now, oversized and tan and warm and the cobblestones were a murky red, a desert smudge of sunrises to come and then Arthur wasn’t alone again.

A weight settled on his shoulder, spicy and sweet, a smell not unlike his oversized shirt. “It’s your wool coat.” Arthur’s tongue felt thick in his throat but not unmovable, not a Sisyphean effort to budge.

“It is, Arthur. One of your favorites, if I recall correctly.” Arthur felt a syrupy smile spread across his face, slow and sweet, a bit melancholy as it pulled at the tight skin near his temple.

He felt the pad of a textured thumb slide near his brow, and turned toward it instinctively,  a sunflower searching for sun. “Careful of the stitches, love. The painkillers might make you feel brilliant, but as much as I’d like otherwise you’re far from invincible.”

Arthur thought of brilliant things he liked, like full lips and dark coffee. “Let’s get coffee,” he said, and leaned forward, meaning to get out of the embrace of their balcony. He was stopped by a five fingered caress over his chest, a heat over his sternum. Arthur sat back, pouting, and looked toward the glass of the skyscrapers, which were beginning to reflect a soft pinkish orange of a faraway horizon.

“What if I make some coffee, and bring it up here, and then we sleep?” Arthur smiled again and reached out, clumsy fingers catching on cheekbones and stubble. Warm fingers enclosed his own and a quiet chuckle rolled over Arthur like the purr of an engine and he decided not only did he want to stay, but that he never wanted to leave.

He blinked luxuriously.

“Wait,” came Arthur’s voice. It was a second later but the colors of the skyscrapers bloomed yellow and his hot coffee steamed next to a plate of those red-jar biscuits.

“What, darling?”

Arthur blinked up from his cocoon of warmth and stitches and tan button ups and missing shoes and a draped wool overcoat and finally saw the man in front of him.

He remembered why he had been waiting at the door.

“It’s nice to see you, Eames."

“It’s very nice to see you too, Arthur.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's 2am and I might be on heavy painkillers but for some reason my brain decided I needed this fic in my life.
> 
> I hope it wasn't terrible.
> 
> Comments & kudos appreciated <3


End file.
